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- one guy drinks the donation money
- another get a bloody punch in the nose by his buddy (concussion and serious facial injuries)
- another lies about being a Marine and gets kicked out of the gang
- another wants to leave to take care of his cows
- another with PTSD made to leave (gets violent when under stress)
- accusing each other of being loose cannons
- brawling over whether wives and children should be in the killing zone
- brawling over the last Twinkie
You forgot that the local sheriff and local ranchers - including the Hammonds - want them gone.
Looks to me like the real problem is testosterone poisoning. There may someday be an uprising against the federal gov, but these guys won't be the leaders. They're just plain bad at picking causes. Not to mention bad at being organized and bad at securing a supply chain.
There were 2 cases. In one, the Hannsons were doing a controlled burn to eliminate weeds and brush on their property. It got away from them and burned a few acres of weeds on public land. The family put the fire out at no cost to the public. In the second case, a fire started on the public land and was spreading uncontrolled and threatening their ranch. They set a back burn (burnout) to eliminate the fuel source in front of the fire, thereby containing it. This is exactly what every firefighter does to fight a wildfire.
There's a little more to it than that;
The jury convicted both of the Hammonds of using fire to destroy federal property for a 2001 arson known as the Hardie-Hammond Fire, located in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area.
Witnesses at trial, including a relative of the Hammonds, testified the arson occurred shortly after Steven Hammond and his hunting party illegally slaughtered several deer on BLM property.
Jurors were told that Steven Hammond handed out “Strike Anywhere” matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to “light up the whole country on fire.” One witness testified that he barely escaped the eight to ten foot high flames caused by the arson.
The fire consumed 139 acres of public land and destroyed all evidence of the game violations. After committing the arson, Steven Hammond called the BLM office in Burns, Oregon and claimed the fire was started on Hammond property to burn off invasive species and had inadvertently burned onto public lands. Dwight and Steven Hammond told one of their relatives to keep his mouth shut and that nobody needed to know about the fire.
The jury also convicted Steven Hammond of using fire to destroy federal property regarding a 2006 arson known as the Krumbo Butte Fire, located in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and Steen Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. An August lightning storm started numerous fires and a burn ban was in effect while BLM firefighters fought those fires. Despite the ban, without permission or notification to BLM, Steven Hammond started several “back fires” in an attempt (to) save the ranch’s winter feed. The fires burned onto public land and were seen by BLM firefighters camped nearby. The firefighters took steps to ensure their safety and reported the arsons.
Regarding the 5 year minimum, it was not a rookie judge who decided to appeal the sentence that did not meet the mandatory minimum, it was the prosecutors. Like it or not, a judge cannot decide that a mandatory minimum is 'unconstitutional' he is sworn to impose the sentences as they stand, not how he thinks they should be:
By law, arson on federal land carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. When the Hammonds were originally sentenced, they argued that the five-year mandatory minimum terms were unconstitutional and the trial court agreed and imposed sentences well below what the law required based upon the jury’s verdicts. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, upheld the federal law, reasoning that “given the seriousness of arson, a five-year sentence is not grossly disproportionate to the offense.” The court vacated the original, unlawful sentences and ordered that the Hammonds be resentenced “in compliance with the law.” In March 2015, the Supreme Court rejected the Hammonds’ petitions for certiorari. Today, Chief Judge Aiken imposed five year prison terms on each of the Hammonds, with credit for time they already served.
Communications breakdowns, or a lack of communication, when doing back burns or lighting controlled burns, has killed firefighters more than once. If you don't know someone has lit a back burn behind you, you can get surrounded and killed if you don't notice it quick enough to escape. These idiots put many lives at danger. They belong in prison. It wasn't their land either, they had a grazing lease on public land. We own the land not them and in return for very cheap grazing there are rules governing their use of it which they ignored.
Those running the state who know a thing or two are happy that the federal government owns the land. Other than cattle grazing, significant chunks of the land under federal control out there don't have major economic attractiveness to private investors; guys like those militia members could never afford it even so. Outside of what are protected forest/parks areas, the attractive plots have already mostly been transferred to private hands. The federal government provides grazing rights typically below market, and they also reimburse the states pretty generously from leasing revenue as compensation for tax revenue states would have had if they owned it.
In other words, ranchers using the land get an effective subsidy, and states also get a generous subsidy without the cost of actually having to manage it, administer permits, etc. What sounds like a noble principle to you in theory is actually fairly unattractive to states when it comes down to brass tacks. There is a reason why it has remained this way West of the Mississippi, and it's not that the federal government is hoarding the land for some large economic benefit.
Those running the state who know a thing or two are happy that the federal government owns the land. Other than cattle grazing, significant chunks of the land under federal control out there don't have major economic attractiveness to private investors; guys like those militia members could never afford it even so. Outside of what are protected forest/parks areas, the attractive plots have already mostly been transferred to private hands. The federal government provides grazing rights typically below market, and they also reimburse the states pretty generously from leasing revenue as compensation for tax revenue states would have had if they owned it.
In other words, ranchers using the land get an effective subsidy, and states also get a generous subsidy without the cost of actually having to manage it, administer permits, etc. What sounds like a noble principle to you in theory is actually fairly unattractive to states when it comes down to brass tacks. There is a reason why it has remained this way West of the Mississippi, and it's not that the federal government is hoarding the land for some large economic benefit.
The federal government is to not own land, except for military bases and ports, along with a small section of land called the District of Columbia.
This in no way falls into any of those categories.
Federal buildings and Federal lands all over the nation and in each state, didn't happen until after the Civil War.
The War that proved, the Federal Government was more powerful than the Constitution.
You forgot that the local sheriff and local ranchers - including the Hammonds - want them gone.
Looks to me like the real problem is testosterone poisoning. There may someday be an uprising against the federal gov, but these guys won't be the leaders. They're just plain bad at picking causes. Not to mention bad at being organized and bad at securing a supply chain.
Basically, like most of their ilk, bad at being badass....
Do you really think that there would be any less complaining if the states administered oversight of public lands not to mention corruption.
Putting aside the fact that you don't believe that the federal government should own public lands, what do you imagine the land would look like without central oversight. There is an enormous history of abuse and destruction of wildlife, waterways and open space by ranchers, mineral companies and the many government jurisdictions.
Also Ammon Bundy wants to adjudicate the return of public lands to their rightful owners. Who are they returning it to, the Indians, ranchers the county.
Do you really think that there would be any less complaining if the states administered oversight of public lands not to mention corruption.
Putting aside the fact that you don't believe that the federal government should own public lands, what do you imagine the land would look like without central oversight. There is an enormous history of abuse and destruction of wildlife, waterways and open space by ranchers, mineral companies and the many government jurisdictions.
Also Ammon Bundy wants to adjudicate the return of public lands to their rightful owners. Who are they returning it to, the Indians, ranchers the county.
Maybe the government should divide up all of the land into equal parcels and give a parcel to every American citizen. Then if these ranchers want to continue grazing on the land they will have to negotiate with the new owners of those lots.
Bundy and his bunch want welfare. They want the land to be given to them free. They don't want to buy it. If given to anyone, it should be the rightful owners, the Native Americans, It was taken from them by force.
Cliven Bundy doesn't even want to pay the modest $1.35 per head grazing fee.
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